Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Starver]

Ok, my take-home from this, then, is that you're perfectly happy to consider Islam as an inherently violent religion like no other. If you'll let me misread what you said like you misread what I said.

BREEEEEEXXXXXXXIIIITTTTTTTT
That's me trying to draw a line under that argument, at least as far as I'm concerned. Please do add your own re-rebuttals as you feel necessary.

[Sheb]

Who are you talking to exactly?

[ChairmanPoo]

Pathos

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Oh my god Sheb, you can't just ask someone if they're Pathos!

[smjjames]

It has absolutely nothing do to with the "age" of the religion and everything to do with current trends of ideology within the religion - that is, violent, oppressive, and expansionist salafism fueled by Saudi ambitions of power.

I'd like to point out that (since Christianity and Islam are fundamentally pretty similar) at the equivalent time in Christianity's development, it was about as violent as Islam is right now, sooo... It might be an age thing. 14th/15th centuries Christianity was pretty fuckin' brutal if you'll recall.

Going off of the 'age of religion' thing, I don't know of Buddhism (which is roughly 600 years older than Christianity, give or take a century) ever going through such a reformation period as what Christianity went through. Judaism and Hinduism are far older, but I doubt they've gone through an equivalent of the reformation at the same 'age' as Christianity did. Sure, they've had their periods of growth, golden ages, reformation-like events, but all at ages completely different and independent of Christianity.

[Starver]

Oh my god Sheb, you can't just ask someone if they're Pathos!

You rarely see Pathos without his friends, Orthos, D'aramis and Artangnan.

[Neonivek]

I should state that the Islam within the UK is very different than the Islam within Saudi Arabia.

Then again people touting non-religious practices AS religious is a practice as old as freeken time! (The Crusades "Convert and die" for example)

I remember when Canada has a small rash of honor killings (I think 1-3 instances in a short period of time), it was a huge no no by the Muslim community.

Which is kind of funny about how much Muslims are left out of this conversation when you think about it. Their religion is considered a seditious element, even though I am sure they overwhelmingly chastise terrorist activity.

HECK even the whole "But they criticize Western Beliefs!" is EXTREMELY overblown given that anyone, ANYONE, who actually pays attention in Catholic school knows that... Yeah, pretty much all religions criticize secular beliefs and methodologies.

But the best part isn't even all that. It is the sheer irony of the effect of their treatment.

[smjjames]

The whole 'conversion by the sword' is way older than the Crusades.

[Neonivek]

The whole 'conversion by the sword' is way older than the Crusades.

Indeed it has a long history.

[Sheb]

The whole 'conversion by the sword' is way older than the Crusades.

But it took a whole new level of lawyering, because forced conversion is actually forbidden in canon law. Which of course led to people claiming that the Balts weren't really pagans, but had been converted before and were apostates. Not that different from the Takfir ideology of ISIS and co actually.

[Necrothurge]

Isn't this electoral fraud?

[Sheb]

Why are you posting the same thing in two threads?

[Silverthrone]

Meanwhile, it appears that all those arrested in connection to the attack have been released. It is a shame that there were no suspects amongst them, but it is also a good sign that the innocent can still count on the law, even in times of war.

Further, it is impossible (for good reason) to know precisely how the security police do their work, but I do hope that they take the time to log and register each and every one in Britain who have openly expressed support for this attack on social media, et cetera. It is not illegal to hold a traitorous opinion, but any sign of wanting to act it out ought to be grounds for a visit from the flash-bang fairy.

As for the election, I am quite surprised to see how it has developed into Springtime for Corbyn. I do not know what the long-term effect of it will be for the Brexit agreement (I assume that it is binding, and that the only thing in negotiation is the manner in which it is carried out), but it will be frightfully interesting.
It is very odd. The lesson of 2016 was thus: anything is possible. Do not count out a candidate based on convention, for they can truly surprise. It is strange that the political clever-clogs forgot that it could possibly apply to 'the other side', as well.

[Sheb]

He, I dunno, the issue seems to be that intelligence agencies don't have enough manpower to really look all those that are on watchlists, usually after people from their community reported them to the police. Pretty much every terrorist was on one of those. Adding thens of thousands people to watchlist to further dilute ressources seems counter-productive.

[Starver]

If they did have enough manpower, it would be worryingly close to a Stasi state. There are going to be more and more 'suspicious characters' reported, especially after incidents like this, and the manpower to immerse them in a surveillance bubble sufficient to definitively rule every one of these in or out of concern would be labour-intensive, to say the least.

The cleverer/luckier ones will slip beneath the radar of a cursory glance, whilst some false-positive reports will soak up effort just because of an inadvertent signal that "they're up to something" that the target never dreams is being picked up by the authorities.

(Having an affair? Leaving work to start your own rival business? Avoiding VAT? No longer an Arsenal supporter? ...you thought it was just your wife, family, colleagues, taxman or boys-down-the-pub that you were trying to hide things from, but your attempts to live a different life are picked up by the six guys on the current shift to watch your house and tail your movements in a taxi and on foot... All of whom ought to be watching the quiet one in the next street, but nobody yet knows that...)